This invention relates generally to auger feed granulators for plastic materials or the like, such as scrap originating with plastic molding apparatus, such granulators reconditioning the plastic material for reuse.
Granulators of this type are well known, a representative example being shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,795,369, assigned to the same assignee as the present application. Such granulators include a granulator assembly having a bladed granulating mechanism with a hopper positioned over the granulating mechanism for recieving material to be granulated from a conveyer comprising a trough and an auger working in the trough to feed material deposited in the trough to the granulator assembly.
A major problem with such granulators is the tendency of long pieces or runners of thermoplastic material to wrap around the feed or discharge end of the auger and effect a binding action between the auger and the hopper wall on which the adjacent end of the auger shaft has customarily been journaled. This causes jamming and binding of the auger and prevents discharge of the material into the cutting chamber. Various expedients have heretofore been suggested to solve the problem, such as providing a disk and blocking bar pursuant to said U.S. Pat. No. 3,795,369, providing a stationary bar parallel with the auger axis and close to the outer diameter of the auger flights in the cutting chamber, notching the auger flights to sever the material, eliminating the auger flights in the cutting chamber and having only the bare auger shaft spanning the cutting chamber, sometimes with strippers provided to clear the bare shaft of wrapups. However, the various attempts at solving the problem as listed have not been satisfactory when long flexible runners are fed by the auger, and hot runners in particular.